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Why Are Oil & Gas Workers Mysteriously Dying Across America?
In July of 2012, the mother of 21-year old Dustin Bergsing filed a wrongful-death suit in Yellowstone County District Court. Bergsing died on January 7 of that year — his first child was born just six weeks prior. The cause of death was hydrocarbon poisoning. More specifically, Bergsing died from inhaling fatal amounts of petroleum vapors after gauging a crude oil tank on a Marathon Oil site in Mandaree, North Dakota. Here is what happened (from a North Dakota Supreme Court apellee brief):
Dustin Bergsing was working for Across Big Sky when he was found dead at a Marathon well-site near Mandaree, North Dakota, in the early morning hours of January 7, 2012. Across Big Sky also submitted a report of death, describing the accident happened when Bergsing was "on the catwalk and was going to gauge the oil level in the production tank."
On January 6, 2012, Bergsing left the home he shared with Lacey Breding in Montana to start his shift in North Dakota. The week before, Breding and Bergsing began making plans for their wedding, which was scheduled for June 30, 2012. The night of January 6, Breding and Bergsing were messaging each other, and Bergsing stopped responding around 9:30 p.m. The next contact Breding had was from the Dunn County Sheriff's Department at approximately 4:15 a.m. informing her Bergsing had died…
The bloodwork showed Bergsing had ethane, propane, butane, isobutene, pentane, hexane, and cyclohexane in his blood.
The concept of tank gauging is simple: workers check the level of oil in storage tanks at tank batteries by opening a hatch and putting a gauge inside. Here’s how it works:
One of the problems with manual tank gauging is that, as one might imagine, noxious vapors have a tendency to build up inside the tanks and so, when the hatches on top are opened, those vapors are suddenly released into the previously breathable air around the workers. Breathing these hydrocarbon “plumes” can lead to sudden death by asphyxiation and/or cardiac arrest. In some cases, tank gauging is done alone, increasing the risk of fatal accidents.
Nine workers have been killed over the past four years in circumstances that strongly suggest hydrocarbon poisoning as the likely cause of death, and yet so far, only one of the fatalities has been solely attributed to hydrocarbon vapor inhalation.
As far as the oil & gas industry’s position on the dangers of manual tank gauging is concerned, there appear to be two possibilities: either they did not realize that opening a hatch on top of an oil tank and looking inside might expose workers to dangerous fumes, or they did realize this and chose not to do anything about it. Here’s WSJ:
The deaths of Trent Vigus and at least nine other oil-field workers over the past five years had haunting similarities. Each worker was doing a job that involved climbing on top of a catwalk strung between rows of storage tanks and opening a hatch.
There were no known witnesses to any of the men’s deaths. Their bodies were all found lying on top of or near the tanks. Medical examiners generally attributed the workers’ deaths primarily or entirely to natural causes, often heart failure…
According to some industry-safety and government officials. The industry has been ignoring warning signs for years and has been resistant to implementing some steps that would reduce or eliminate the risk to workers.
“I was trying to get workers into respirators and all kinds of things and running an uphill battle,” said a former industrial hygienist for a large oil company who said he had noticed dangerously high hydrocarbon levels in some of his testing as far back as 2009. “They say, ‘Everyone does it this way.’ But that doesn’t make it any less right or wrong.”
Some industry officials said that companies hadn’t realized there might be a problem until the pattern of deaths began to emerge, but they now acknowledge the situation needs to be studied further.
One company that surely did “realize there might be a problem” was Marathon because, as the following excerpt from the Billings Montana Gazette details, both sides in the wrongful death suit of Dustin Bergsing agreed that hydrocarbon poisoning was indeed the cause of death and although the exact amount of the settlement wasn’t revealed, someone apparently made a payment to the family “in the seven-figure range”:
A confidential settlement has been reached in a lawsuit involving a Montana man who died working at a Marathon Oil well in North Dakota.
An attorney representing the family of Dustin Bergsing said Friday that he could not reveal any details of the settlement.
Fredric Bremseth, of the Bremseth Law Firm in Minnetonka, Minn., said only that "the case was resolved for a confidential amount”...
In pretrial statements filed by attorneys for the family and Marathon Oil, both sides agreed that Bergsing died of hydrocarbon poisoning…
The statement said Marathon Oil "knew or should have known that the oil well and tank facility where Dustin Bergsing worked was unreasonably dangerous due to the presence of a large amount of toxic hydrocarbon gases under pressure in the oil."
The statement further said that Marathon "was actually warned by an employee that the accumulation of gases at these wells was ultrahazardous, and could result in a death."
A computation of damages hadn't yet been done, the statement continued, "other than to value the case in the seven-figure range."
Fortunately for everyone in the oil & gas industry who may have been hitherto unaware that breathing hydrocarbon vapors emitted out of giant oil tanks might be dangerous, both the CDC and OSHA have put together some helpful information on the subject.
From the CDC:
NIOSH researchers, along with officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and members of the academic community, have continued to investigate these and other reports of worker deaths associated with manual tank gauging and sampling operations in the oil and gas extraction industry. Through this investigation, NIOSH researchers have now identified nine fatalities of oil and gas extraction workers from January 2010 to December 2014 associated with tank gauging or sampling. The degree of detailed information about each case varies but all have in common manually gauging or sampling production tanks at oil and gas well sites…
When hatches on production tanks are opened by a worker, a plume of hydrocarbon gases and vapors can be rapidly released due to the internal pressure present in the tank. These gases and vapors can include benzene, a carcinogen, as well as low molecular weight hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, and butane. In addition to asphyxiation and explosive hazards, exposure to high concentrations of these low molecular weight hydrocarbons can have narcotic effects, resulting in disorientation, dizziness, light-headedness and other effects.
For those wondering what a deadly hydrocarbon plume looks like, here’s an infrared image which shows you just what it is that these workers are breathing when they open the hatches atop the oil tanks...
...and here is OSHA to explain exactly how the buildup occurs and what happens when the vapor is released…
Hatch is closed. No visible emissions, greater than 95% VOCs produced are controlled. Gases and vapors in tank are in equilibrium with gas and vapors in the liquid hydrocarbon. The different gases and vapors are exerting pressure on the container.
Hatch is opened. A large volume of gases (mostly propane and butane) rush out of the hatch very quickly. The “cloud” can displace oxygen in the immediate work area and presents an immediate asphyxiation hazard.
Below, courtesy of the CDC, is a list of the circumstances surrounding each of the nine workers’ deaths. Note that the fatalities are variously attributed to things like atherosclerosis, diabetes, and tobacco use. Particularly absurd is the fact that the following series of events was attributed to ischemic heart disease ("natural causes") with no mention of hydrocarbon vapors:
The employee (52 years old) lost consciousness while pulling an oil sample out of a thief hatch on a tank. The employee fell backwards on the 90 degree corner of the catwalk guardrail. The employee's clothing became hooked to the guardrail. The employee was hanged by his sweatshirt hood. From the toxicology report, autopsy, and extensive air monitoring conducted by the employer and emergency personnel it was determined this individual died from natural causes. The cause of death was sudden cardiac death due to ischemic heart disease. Contributing factors include atherosclerosis and cardiomegaly.
While "natural causes" are blamed in most of these cases, it seems to us that there is a very real possibility that most (or all) of these fatalities were the result of hydrocarbon poisoning and thus could have been entirely avoidable. Of course the likely reason why the proper solutions have not been implemented is that fixing the problem would cost money. Here's WSJ again:
Some industry experts say the industry knew the plumes could unleash potentially dangerous vapors and should have been monitoring the chemical levels all along. And, they say, companies could implement safety fixes that would reduce or remove hazards. One option is to use automated or remote methods to read tank levels. That is done regularly elsewhere, including in Canada.
“There’s no question in my mind it was absolutely known” that there were dangerously noxious fumes coming from the tanks, said Dennis Schmitz, a safety consultant for oil companies in North Dakota. “You are absolutely required to evaluate that hazard before you put that employee up there.”
“Every hazard should be engineered out,” added Mr. Schmitz, who acknowledged that fixes would add some cost.
We'll leave you with the following quote from Dr. William Massello, a North Dakota state forensic examiner, and a forensic pathologist — these are some of the things that can happen should you inhale toxic hydrocarbon vapors right before you coincidentally die of "natural causes":
Well, as I mentioned, number one is you can have a seizure. You could have respiratory what we call respiratory arrest or respiratory paralysis, it can put you in a coma, or you can have what we call a fatal arrhythmia of the heart, the heart can quit beating normally and actually sort of fibrillate or jiggle in such a fashion that it doesn't produce any flow of blood and you die from that. And then, of course, you know, when you have fluid in your lung, this can impair the exchange of oxygen that you are going to you're not going to get enough oxygen when you breathe. And then also these components will displace oxygen from your lungs so that in and of themselves they're displacing oxygen from the lung and, as a consequence, you just don't have enough oxygen in your system. So it can be any one of these or all of these things and these can end up killing you.
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We gassed some folks.
Dangerous/poisonous job.
Oh yeah, that's it, how come this didn't kill me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHN9lNRnoPM
You guys are fucking stupid if you believe this shit. People have been doing this job for 70 years, they are called pumpers you dumb shits. All the storage tanks are built this way. LTO has higher pressure but probably less of the toxics in it than WTI.
We live in a world where all risks are levered, not eliminated. Another investing opportunity coming!!
I work with woodworking equipment and they simultaneously want us to put every kind of satety device imaginable, making the tools almost impossible to use, AND buy a ton of insurance. Whats weird it is is the guys claiming work injury from pushing a broom, not cutting themselves.
OMFG, how did I take these pictures and live???????????????
http://i62.tinypic.com/91lx8k.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/21klg.jpg
Because that is a picture of the inside of your beer-brewing vat? :-)
Perhaps it has something to do with narcissism?
They are pictures of YOU, right?
No, they are pictures of the oil level in the tanks.
As to the Bakken in North Dakota, try this: last year the ND Dept of Health paid Argonne National Lab $200,000.00 for a "study" to determine whether it would be "appropriate" to raise the radioactivity level at oil and gas waste landfills by 1000%...10 times. In the summary of the Argonne study, and in at least 8 places throughout the study, Argonne said that it would be "appropriate" only if the workers--drill site waste, landfill, salt water disposal wells--were required to wear respirators. So, the Dept of Health publishes a new set of rules for comment, holds 3 statewide hearings......on rule changes that stripped every personal protective equipment requirement Argonne said was required out of the rule changes !!! Literally, totally removed the personnel safety dictums stated multiple times in the Argonne study. Truly, truly incredible.
Go to the ND Dept of Health website and read the study yourself....and then read their proposed rules:
I would support paying for a government study to determine if governments are evil oppressors. They would probably be dumb enough to actually determine that they were. They just can't pass up a chance to highlight a threat.
Never let a good crisis go to waste when you can walk away for a minute.
Opening a huge, sealed tank of oil manually with your face 2 feet from it is dangerous?? What a shock!!
The oil industry didn't realize it might be a problem?? What a shock!!
Score another loss for the working man....
Where is OSHA when they're needed?...oh, that's right...they are too busy checking for really dangerous stuff like chafed extension cords on construction sites....
Over twice as many people died in workplace accidents in America than were killed the Vietnam War over the same time period. At least workers die for a good cause, themselves.
AT least, according to The Bath House, all our soldiers now die from workplace accidents.
These are small dumb oil companies as compared to Shell, BP, etc, they weren't and aren't doing their homework, all these companies are extensively over leaveraged,underfiananced , and not staffed in safety personnel....shortcuts cost lives
You don't know that. Marathon is not a "small dumb oil company" and they do train their personnel. One is not supposed to drink and drive either but many still do knowing the risks. You are responsible for your own actions.
Obviously they were not TAUGHT well enough.
One trains animals.
One teaches Humans.
There is a difference between humans and animals.
Your own words have revealed that you place the same value upon humans as you do upon animals.
You haven't any conscience.
That is what is truly tragic about you.
I have a conscience. Tragic? Seriously? You are full of shit.
Yeah, and BP really knows how to make serially correct decisions when drilling in deep water!
/s
Lately I've had some wicked personal gaz that wud put that to shame!
The 7 figure payout if spent on the necessary equipment would have saved lives, however, cutting corners has ALWAYS been the way of BIG OIL.
I can only squirm at what is happening in the 3rd world in terms of safety measures and resultant deaths at the hands of corrupt officials in cahoots with these greedy multinationals.
The dumping of toxic materials in the sea causing untold environmental damage sends shivers up me timbers.
WTFUD, It sounds like you've never worked for "Big Oil".
Since Big Oil is evil and all, why do these people drive large gas guzzling lifted trucks, SUVs and waste as much overpriced oil as they can?
You have no idea what you're talking about. So shut up.
Ever hear of FUKUSHIMA?
Ever hear abot BP's little mishap in the Gulf of Mexico?
Ever read about the Oil Spill off of Alaska when the Exxon Valdez ran aground?
Did you know that there is a plethora of events which comes to mind?
But my favorite one of all time...
John Rockefeller, who owned Standard Oil, could have single handedly stopped World War II by refusing to SELL OIL TO THE NAZIS...THE OIL which they were using to BOMB LONDON.
Even after America entered into the war Standard Oil continued to sell OIl to the Nazis from South America via Switzerland.
Go fuck yourself corporate spolesman.
Did you know that the weakest link in your supply chain is the refiner. If accidents happen at that point and to many refineries at once, then it will crash your entire industry. And those Cracking Towers are damned volatile. It is hard enough keeping them stable, since they are under pressure, to where they do not blow themselves apart.
Your industry has taught me that by setting fires to their own refineries and by staging strikes in order to restrict supply to Southern California, specifically San Diego, where we have been gouged.
You cannot sell crude to the end user, can you? While refined products are usable to many the unrefined product is rather useless except to the refiner. And if he is not operational then there are no sales, nor revenues to pay your salary..
OK, so let's see here. You're saying Fukushima, the Valdez spill and the BP were somehow done on purpose? Setting fires to their own refineries on purpose? Man, you need some medication. I will agree on the Rockefeller thing though. Standard sold oil to Germany until Pearl Harbor. Do you know if they used any of it to bomb Rotterdam as well? Now, on a personal level, I am not a corporate spokesperson. I am not nor ever have been employed by any oil company. I am an independent drilling consultant (whore). I get paid to supervise drilling operations. Safely by the way. For anybody (even you) that meets my day rate. In fact, I'm on the North Slope doing just that right now. We just completed (with a 6 stage frac) one hell of a good well. I will have everything moved off the tundra by Saturday and you won't be able to tell we were here. No Valdez, no BP, no Fukushima. We are closely monitored by the state of Alaska. So there.
Of course it's not "natural causes"; it's the invisible hand.
I would speculate that North Dakota has Worker's Compensation laws that would normally bar this sort of lawsuit and severely limit the damages to only what is stated directly in the statute, and would require an adminiatrative filing at a state agency to recover those limited benefits rather than a Court lawsuit. But the pattern in most states is that the worker's compensation bar against lawsuits (and the full panoplyof personal injury damages) does not apply to harm intentionally caused by the employer.
In Michigan the lead case involved a couple of obviously desperate for work non-English speaking recent immigrants hired to dump recycled x-ray film into a vat of strong acid to recover the platinum. The poor dumb workers died from inhaling acid fumes in the enclosed old warehouse within which the vat was located. Well, actually, they died when, over time, their lungs were dissolved by the acid they inhaled. The families sued the employer, and the Courts eventually made the common sense ruling that a man intends the natural consequences of his actions, and he cannot play dumb and say he never intended to harm anybody when he sets up a stupid industrial process such as the acid vats in that case.
This sounds like the same sort of situation, a set-up designed to eventually kill some of the workers, with the number of deaths being considered by the employer as an acceptable cost of doing business when measured against the costs of the available alternatives. Hell, respirators cost money and must be maintained and periodically inspected, and it takes time for your hourly workers to get them, put them on, then take them off, and put them back where they belong, and that time cuts into the bottom line.
Of course, you experience none of the costs associated with the deaths of your workers as long as you play dumb and say you never intended for anybody to die and nobody calls you on that little fib. Also, you can always find some whore expert physician to testify that the death was caused by congenital problems unrelated to the decedent's employment.
Haha, the guy who owned the plant must have been from Dhaka.
You're another one that doesn't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Huh, I wonder how much that adds to the climate issues.
There wouldn't be any organic substrate to brew new "Texas Tea", if oil and gas workers didn't die.
JFC, Even Jamie Dimon's 3rd cousin knows black gold ain't anaerobic. Bitchez
We Dutch ovened some folks...
Betcha that temperature was right cold on January 7th in North Dakota, don'tcha know... Hardly seems worth it to take off your Carhartt and stick your face into one of the freezing cold respirator things...
Why are Christians dying in the Middle East? The Obama Administration doesn't know the answer to that one either!
Hey, maybe because he is a Shia head-chopper, and wants Christians dead.
I was reading in bed one night reading when I suddenly broke some gas loudly.
My wife looked across and said, "WHAT was THAT?"
Without batting an eye lid and without looking across at her, I replied:
"Your annual hearing test dear."
Excellent. Worthy of a leg lift.
We were working down South and decided to get some local color beyond the hotel bar.
Once safely ensconced at the well worn bar down the road and admiring the barmaid with a breathtakingly low cut top, we noticed she was taking up a collection for the jukebox and as she came our way and asked my buddy, "Whal dahrlin', whaja like to hear?"
Without a missed beat he said, "Your belt buckle hitting my bedroom floor".
Beer burns like hell when you snork it out your nose.
I thought he was a comeback genius until I found out later it was an old joke punchline.
Even still, it's all in the timing.
so this is now a worker safety blog for people doing genuine work?
i understand zh getting ontop of banker 'suicides' . this oil workers safety article is ridiculous.
Not if one or two guys read this and tighten up.
You never know.
Everytime I huff benzine for kicks I realize it's fortifying me against the dangers of my job.
Shit happens :) </sarc>
r.i.p. oil & gas workers who have lost their lives to provide us with cheap, dirty energy.
live by the vapors, die by the vapors
paris 2015 reset or bust.
Anyone who opens a hatch on site should be tested.
Anyone working around an open hatch should be tested.
Not just guage readers.
Shame on those who knew, and did nothing.
Hell is for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlLQvZ6-GQ
Abandon all hope, he who enters here
Hell is for those who reject the Jesus of the Scriptures; that includes the Rothschild's to the Jones to the Smiths.
130 years plus of storing petroleum products...this must be another wildly sneaky Zionist plot to kill off the goyim. I'm sure GeoWash can write another column explaining the intricacies of said cabalistic subterfuge.
Paging Tony Wilson and the Thirst Mutilator.
My apologies for anyone I missed.
Gee I didn't think of that. Thanks for the heads up.
MSA Altair 4x detects oxygen, carbon monoxide, flamability, and H2S.
Only problem is that the calibration gas is expensive.
Oh hell, just carry a canary cage with you.
because profits yo!
I can't count the number of times I've been cleaning my bathroom, and got spinners and bright lights from diluted, household bleach.
It's time to cross Crab Fishing and CL tank apprentice off my " upside~down bucket list" of things to do.
Nine guys in five years? Not impressed or worried.
As a kid, I worked in my parents gas station and dipped all the tanks every night before closing. This practice has been going on for more than a century all over the world.
But the former Asbestos attorneys are running out of frail old people to milk and need some new crisis to feed off of.
It won't be the government or the oil companies that end up paying for another vast bureaucratic empire and tons of lawsuits, will it?
Hi tarabel
that's a coincidence as i worked in my old man's massage parlour and dipped several of the masseuse on a regular basis. The girly ones of course as i know you're smart with cum-backs.
Hi Dat,
I hope you were careful not to inhale any of those fumes. That's some toxic shit after the shift change on a Saturday night.
An up vote for a brave man.
Yes luv it was a dirty job but heh you only live once.
An up vote for an understanding woman.
These guys clearly need moar training time in the Everglades. There's plenty of swamp gas and other doo,dads for OTJ training.
Better yet, Make the dipshits go Heliox diving for a week!
I light my deadly hydrocarbon plumes on fire with a bic at parties for laughs.
So THAT's why they call you Blackfingers.
They should stick a burning highway flare into the hatch for better viewing, that would probably put these silly rumors to rest, too.
OSHA. Training. Fans and venting to create air flow first. Sewer workers use them. Just think about your family and THINK AHEAD and do what YOU need to do to protect your life. You only get one mistake!
We always test before pulling a ductbank. You drop the ladder, then ventilate the hell out of it. I will not send my guys down an existing bank w/o a test. In a work area, though, you have to cone cone cone and strap up giant layers of danger tape. And that's becasue I don't have enough men to guard each hole. One guy HAS to saty up top and watch the guy below.
Military bases in Canada and Cuba, as well several Central American countries, are planned as well
This satire originally appeard at Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Translated for RI by Ricky Twisdale
Wolfgang Bittner is a writer and lawyer. His book “The Conquest of Europe by the USA” (Die Eroberung Europas durch die USA) was recently published.
From trustworthy intelligence sources it has become known that China intends to enter a defensive alliance with several South American countries in the near future. As a defensive measure against a possible missile attack from Iran or North Korea, it is planning to station a missile-defense system on Mexico’s border with the United States. Medium-range ballistic missiles, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be incorporated into the defensive system.
Furthermore, China intends to establish military bases in several Central American countries as well as Canada and Cuba. In cooperation with Russia, a missile-defense shield and long-range ballistic missiles are to be placed on the northern Siberian border in order to be able to effectively counter possible attacks from rouge states.
The U.S. government has condemned this plan as a genuine threat and protested sharply against it. Washington has announced that it will immediately take corresponding defensive measures against a military encirclement of the United States. It will likewise put a stop to attempts to destabilize the United States through subversion, of which it had been aware for quite some time.
http://russia-insider.com/en/alarming-chinese-missile-defense-mexicos-bo...
It doesn't sound like much of a mystery. So wear appropriate PPE's and end the problem.
"Who does Plant Safety start with?"
"You."
The company I used to work for required a Scott Air-Pak for certain jobs. We had to measure gas concentrations in the atmosphere many times with Draeger tubes, and wear at least a half-face mask with two hydrocarbon cartridges if a certain chemical was above a given concentration, sometimes a full-face mask. For very dangerous jobs we used either the 30-minute Scott Air-Pak or a SCBA mask with an air line to a bank of cylinders. We had a clean-shaven policy and we had to be tested at least once a year for a good seal with all types of masks. We could never top a storage tank or gauge a ship or a truck or a rail car without a Scott Air-Pak.
Exactly. We owned a plating shop years ago. It wasn't rocket science to keep your employees safe, but it wasn't cheap. But it was worth every penny. The fact that the industry didn't change it's procedures after the first death is criminal.
f'kin tarded
Humans have had mechanical tank guage technology since at least Archemedes.
"why dont we have a ground level mechanical guage?"
<crickets>
"Shut up and stick your head in the gas tank top and look, Fuckstein needs a visual"
<crickets>
Cooking pulp won't go thru a gauge.
There is a company which makes detection devices based on the Coriolis effect. It works great for gasses.
“THE ISIS LEADER ABU BAKR AL BAGHDADI WAS TRAINED BY THE ISRAELI MOSSAD”The former NSA and CIA agent Edward Snowden revealed that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was trained in Israel, various Iranien sources reported. Snowden added that the American CIA and the British Intelligence collaborated with the
Israeli Mossad to create a terrorist organization that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. The “Hornet’s nest’’ strategy aims to bring all […]
Read full story ?Those Israelis are some smart mo-fos, if you ask me. Just like Shaft.
Let's assume this is true. What does it say?
That Israel encourages Islamic kooks from all over the world to congregate in one single place where they can be watched, controlled, and eventually eliminated.
Since the only membership requirement for joining ISIS is to show up, my guess is that at least 10% of its roster is comprised of double agents from one government or another.
Something on the order of Mitt Romney's self-deportation thing, we now have the nuttiest of the nuts self-deporting to the ME where they amuse themselves by killing each other rather than us.
If true, my hat's off to the Mossad and its fellow spookies for one of the greatest intelligence coups in world history.
Contributory negligence due to stupidity .... these roustabouts consume a lot of extracurriclar hydrocarbons .... booze, cannabis, drugs, speed and pussy juice .... all known to cause cancer .... in laboratory rats !
Not to lessen the life lost here, but this is an old problem.
Waaaay back when I did instrument fitting, we had a guy suffocate due to a tank not being 100% purged. He failed to do the check. However, the tank guys did not perform 100% either. This was in a huge paper mill.
However, we had SCBA and escape masks, which are cheap and easy to use. That is all they need to solve the problem PLUS worker education.
This is somewhat of a scare story.
The CDC says it's genetic. I believe them. Afterall, Halliburton and Washington wouldn't fund a bogus study.
In 1972 as a young auditor, I was assigned to guage an oil tank at a Deleware refinery. I remember vividly that the refinery employees gave me an oxygen mask and tank and tied a lifeline to me to pull me to safety if I was overcome. Obviously, this is not a new problem.
Really, DUH... Anyone around any aspect of this industry should know they've got hazardous atmospheres all over. I can't imagine people wouldn't gas check it before popping a large port. Then again, there's video floating around of a dumbass checking the level in a gasoline tanker with a cigarette lighter...
Huffing gas fumes while working ? . Your fired .
From someone who used to work in the chemical industry, there is no excuse for having manual gauge readings in modern times. They can all be read remotely with a little investment.
I can check the level in a tank with my phone real time right now.
Personal gas monitors are a couple of hundred bucks.
Corporations are only as criminal as their management is.
Around here that would have been a mask job (SCBA). Maybe a bit of H2S?
They were being politically correct. The electric carbon based hybrid cars imploded before they reached the oil drilling work site.
/ my condolences to the families.
The Residents - Safety is the Cootie Wootie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW0C6_GLpgA
Safety will be mine forever.
Hi Ultramaroon
No disrespect intended personally but i listened to that track and 3 other by the same band and they don't make music like that any more- thank fuck.
That's coma inducing stuff.
Each to their own though. Regards
They needs to put on their gas mask before opening that tank... See, easy solution!
these guys need to get their mind right, the most important thing is to go home at the end of their shift. Just shoot the tank, " I was in fear for my life",take a paid vacation.
You are better than this ZH. Hopefully many people in my family who I try to get to read this site do not read it tonight. This article could have easily come from USA Today. Maybe I will swing by the hotel in the morning and see if I can read it again. I expect better.
I thought it was a 60 minutes piece myself...
A Keynesian jobs plan....kill current workers...more jobs!
I'm surprised they even have employees checking tank levels. Inspecting or repairing systems, sure, but the levels? There are all sorts of sensors from float switches (crude) to ultrasonic devices (better) that can measure and report fluid levels with very good accuracy.
They must have had issues before and require verified data. I hate it when people die on the job. It would be better to get killed on your own time, like sky-diving or downhill skiing or alligator wrestling. Dying for the boss, at his oil tank, sucks.
Stand upwind, boys.
I worked in an oil refinery for 3 years as a student in the summer time. It was the students sent up to the top of the tanks to lower a tape measure in to verify the tank levels, not the trained operators. No safety warning that I remember but that was 40 years ago in Canada. I survived. Whew!!
I love the smell of Hydro Carbon vapors .... in the morning !
i've done this exact thing with worse products. the trick is to stay upwind and let it bleed off before gauging. there are electronics that can get it done too -- radar is best for a funky crude. oil co's want you to verify the radar with the manual gauge every so often - so having the electronics doesn't solve anything
it's a common task in plants, ports, terminals
i would say more deaths by N2 than anything. A lot of the tanks have N2 blanket on top
H2S is the killer, hydrogen sulfide...
this is why you should never breath in your own fart...
In California, if you were caught on top of a tank without a fresh air respirator you would be terminated. The oil companies know exactly what is going on with these deaths, they are just too cheap to supply the air packs. It only costs them 100k per death by their count if it does not go to court.
Some states are less stringent in their protection of workers. Knowing what I know, I would refuse the job. Better to be out of work and alive than dead.
All the more tragic when you consider we don't need petroleum as an energy source, and we have known this since 1891. (not a typo).
Tesla's Primary Energy Source
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:The_Deliberate_Curtailment_of_Nikola_Tesla%27s_Primary_Energy_Source
Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices - eBook
http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/PJKbook.pdf
Try reading the references.
Bearden, Thomas E. (2005) “Errors and Omissions in the CEM/EE Model”, available from http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/CEM%20Errors%20-%20final%20paper%20complete%20w%20longer%20abstract4.doc .
Learn to PDF
For those who think fuel-less energy is not real.
Currently shipping fuel-less generator.
http://auroratek.us/PRODUCTS.html
I frown upon any scientist that would allow his pavlovian reflex to reject you as a quack. Perhaps if i you could get one of those things to an open minded and competent scientist he could validate it. Otherwise, having it running for a good 3 months on an isolated metal room would be evidence enough of a new technology or some sort of micro nuke.
If i were to allow my repressed reflexes to dominate me, i would accuse you of being a scammer and mutter something about the statute of preservation of enthalpy. IDK, i just dont like products with "quantum" on the name..
so is that energy going to make tires, chemicals, plastics, fertilizers? is it going to fuel a jet plane? think through what you've just said and you will realize that even if there were such a source it could NEVER completely replace petroleum...
Sigh.. with enough energy you could make those chemicals from carbon monoxide from coal or ethanol. If coal runs out in a millenia then harvest carbon with tree crops just like any other crop. If you dont want to bother with coal or wood, then harvest co2 by heating limestone. I suppose all the primary energy generation in a millenia will all be powered by sun-heated hot water and derived energy products like diesel or plastics synthetized from it, as they already are (plastic is synthetic).
Tractors and combines are not needed in hydroponic farms, where half of your descendants will work. Cars are not essential if you live at work, as your descendants will. Trains can run on electricity and trucks on steam. Humanure works as fertilizer as long as people get plenty of fish in their diet. Fisheries will be abundandt once again when the human population spontaneoulsy drops under 300 million.
The survivors will huddle among the good spots near large hydro dams or large good quality solar fields near water, as in the Bagdad area, so renewables will be more than adequate.
Nobody needs jets. If they exist 100 years from now they will be for the rich only. People will go by boat and train, such a tragedy.
Good, I hope they all die so my shale puts make me rich. Fuck those kikes!!!
OSHA costs us greatly...but we sure dont get much for our money.
Just got back from volunteer FF training checked out my SCBA gear. Thats what they should be wearing.
How about an electronic level sensor?
Simple solution is to hire more women. It's obvious that noxious fumes are going to happen. Gals won't have a problem with a gas mask.
With all due respect to the friends and families...
This safety document is dated June 2010, so no excuses about providing and wearing breathing filter masks when dealing with exposed hydrocarbon compounds such as oils.
http://www.srsafety.com/usa/upl/files/41634.pdf
Condolences to all involved.
friggin' perverts. some of you hemorhoids are really sick.
Search our database for these health and safety issue fatalities. Http://www.drillingmaps.com
The Real “Energy Problem”
http://www.cheniere.org/articles/EE%20briefing.htm
Could have been one of the several non-toxic alternatives.
rip
Clean Coal Technology…. It’s not to late.
Give me a break, oil cies not knowing the risks of gauging oil tanks that way .... are you guys in the US still in the Middle Ages? I spent my whole career in the oil and gas industry in Europe and gauging a tank MANUALLY and ALONE is obsolete since the early sixties because of the risks involved. Put a level gauge on those tanks and hook them up to a process computer system, then you 1) don't need to have a guy walk about your plant opening up tank lids; 2) you have readings in real-time and 3) you eliminate the risks involved. Alternative ( for the grocery-store minded money scraping Scrooges of this world ) : put a level glass on the outside of the tanks and read the levels from grade.
“level glass on the outside of the tank”
You should patent that!
Proper method of manual tank gauging (live action):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ukw8s5N0es
ENRAF - The Art of Tank Gauging
2004. 03. 09 (outdated)
http://enraf.ru/userfiles/File/4416650_rev4.pdf
See "Page 7 image / Fig. 5. Manual Gauging" -> compare with the first images in the article
Safety Manager:
The primary role of the Safety Manager is to advise the Directors and Managers on all safety,
health and welfare matters to ensure the Company complies with its statutory obligations.
The Safety Manager is designated responsibility by the Director responsible for health and safety
to control and update the Safety Manual and to ensure that all Departments operate to the
procedures and instructions contained there.
Bringing up the fact that "only" nine workers died (vs. thousands of people who die of heart attacks) misses the point.
These deaths were avoidable with just a little prudence and money. Buy them respirators, send workers up in pairs, or come up with some kind of device they can wear that will sound an alarm when vapor levels get too high.
You can't tell me this isn't technologically possible. How many billions were spend developing a stupid Apple watch that is next to useless? Why can't some of that money go into saving lives vs. keeping the masses zombied-out with the latest crummy tech fad?
What this story illustrates is the depths of depravity to which we've sunk to keep the ponzi economy going. Life is cheapened - these guys were disposable, just "collateral damage" in the "storage war" games being played by investors and hedge funds. If you want to get more depressed read the story in Bloomberg about oil companies shooting wolves from helicopters to try and save the few remaining Caribou that haven't been killed off by the oil sands environmental destruction.
Actually, they're statistical necessities. Nine people over five years is nothing to be concerned about.
Unless one of them is you!
I agree, a respirator seems like an obvious and cheap solution. However 9 people is not "workers dying across america".
Do reduction in lifespans added up across millions of workers divided by average lifespans count as deaths?
Wouldn't a $20 respirator with organic vapor (charcoal) filters solve this "problem"?
Likely not in this case, if the tank releases enough gas to displace all the air around the worker.
Likely not in this case, if the tank releases enough gas to displace all the air around the worker.
Never hear of a fucking respirator? Fucking idiot workers, fucking idiot Environmental Health/Industrial Hygene departments, and fucking idiot OSHA for not having a fucking SOP for these kinds of routing activities.
really?
of course the workers are idiots. along with idiotic gov agencies. but somehow you completely ignore the business?
LOL
wtf d00d?
Wow, pretty negligent.
I mean, like every high school chemistry student is taught to never directly inhale fumes from any container used in the chem lab. If a scent test is safe to conduct and absolutely necessary, one sweeps the strongest fumes away with one hand while testing.
But the oil and gas industry, and their rocket scientist employees and their safety personnell, none of them have ever heard of any of this??
This is what happens when an industry grows too fast and hires young idiots but doesn't want to pay to train them.
The picture of him opening the hatch and looking is why he is dead.
#1 You check the wind for witch direction its blowing.
#2 You open hatch and walk in opposite direction and go take a 5 minute break while it cools down :).
#3 You come back then gauge the tank; but if you see that there is still vapors coming out you rinse and repeat #2 till you can do 3!
Problem Solved! Surviving relatives should sue and concentrate on the Trng! This should never ever happen!
PS If its a H2S Lease which means its detected period. No body but the pumper is allowed to guage from the top ever! He wears a Oxygen Mask and Suit!
"at least nine other oil-field workers over the past five years"
OOOMMMGGG. A whopping NINE people died over FIVE years. Quick, King Barry, save us! You're our only hope!!!1!!!11!!
Does iTunes have an app for this?
it dat mad mullar assad of syriza in iraq
he taken over from gadaffi and saddam as der new hitlers
he releasin barrel bomb gas into der homelands godamit
you evil doers you 5th colonists and spys
why the cotton pickin hell would amerigun corpseperations kill dere own folks
kill fallows
no dis is anudder arab plots
we need sumtin like dem ncis tv show detectives to look into and leave stones unturned and not learn lessons from dis terror
There are wells in ND so heavy with H2S that birds fly over and drop right out of the sky. Remember what ND's flares looked like from space? There were communities breathing that.
It sounds very similar to the way farmers are killed by slurry tanks: a sudden release of methane that is trapped under the surface of the slurry until the farmer disturbs it. When the concentration of methane is high enough you won't smell it.
lotsah dem oil woikahs is on d'drugs anyhows...jus' look at gagin' d'tank likes a biggah hit offah d'bong...